3 Cent Text Messaging

ballooba

If I was able to offer you 3c text messaging from your mobile, but you got a seperate bill would you subscribe?

Pythia

Bill as in a year's contract?
Also how many texts could you avail of at 3c?

ballooba

No contract. Prepaid in text bundles. 100 SMS for €3 for example.

Payments would be made online using Paypal or Credit Card.

RobertFoster

It would be a good idea, barr the Paypal/Credit Card bit. It'd be better/easier to text in the order and have it taken from your credit.

JTMan

Would they expire after 30days/a period of time?

Would you get chraged for Meteor text messages even if you are on a package which they are free?

What would be the minimum purchase?

Is there a chance you could really offer this?

ballooba

Yes, I have already built a system to do this.

Minimum purchase would be that which makes it economically feasible to accept credit card payments.

No expiry period. Every message you send is charged regardless of destination. Most mesages would be 3 cent but some international destinations would be more expensive.

ballooba

RobertFoster wrote:

It would be a good idea, barr the Paypal/Credit Card bit. It'd be better/easier to text in the order and have it taken from your credit.

This would be economically infeasible.

JTMan

How can you do this without an agreement with an irish mobile provider or does it work?

ballooba

It works.

kazzer

It works.

Care to elaborate..

alantc

IIRC vodafone (eircell) put bills on each message sent even when they were sent through free smscs (because everyone was using these 6/7 years ago). You caould charge people by them sending a message to one of those premium rate number... you could even set up a subscription!!! maybe if it was possible to charge premium to vodafone and regular numbers to you.. nice idea anyway,

kazper

when are you planning on launching this?

ballooba

The networks take a large chunk of the revenue from Premium Text Messages. This is why it is not a feasible billing method.

I'm not 'planning' on launching it. Yet.

The system I have would take a fair bit of work to complete to a commercially acceptable level. Also it would take a lot of money to set up.

Mezcita

Interesting idea given that the phone companies make a mint out of the text happy Irish. Apparantly it costs the companies barely anything to send texts.

This business about being charged a higher rate for international texts is complete toss. That said one of the reasons I stay with 02 is for their 250 free webtexts.

Its a good idea though. Good luck if you decide to go with it.

mik_da_man

Sounds good man,

I would use it if it works.
Just wondering if it uses your existing message centre and provider and would ya be able to get delivery reports?

But sounds good

Mik

cupthehand

ballooba wrote:

No expiry period. Every message you send is charged regardless of destination. Most mesages would be 3 cent but some international destinations would be more expensive.

What about lets call them the main international destinations the majority of people would be txtin i.e. UK, USA, Austrailia, mainland Europe all of which have fairly modern accessible networks would these txt's be 3c?
From what I gather you are maybe talking about charging more for the more obscure international networks i.e. Azerbijan or Namibia or similar!

Also would there be a limit to how many you can send each month ala O2 who's max is 400 off a txt bundle?

ballooba

mik_da_man wrote:

Sounds good man,

I would use it if it works.
Just wondering if it uses your existing message centre and provider and would ya be able to get delivery reports?

But sounds good

Mik

No delivery reports unfortunately. May be added at a later date.

ballooba

cupthehand wrote:

What about lets call them the main international destinations the majority of people would be txtin i.e. UK, USA, Austrailia, mainland Europe all of which have fairly modern accessible networks would these txt's be 3c?
From what I gather you are maybe talking about charging more for the more obscure international networks i.e. Azerbijan or Namibia or similar!

Also would there be a limit to how many you can send each month ala O2 who's max is 400 off a txt bundle?

No monthly limit. This is for profit.

Dunno how it works at O2.

Cutie18Ireland

sounds great!! ya'd make a fortune but the payment scheme probably isnt the best for those on pay as you go, isn't there any other way u could charge???

Tobias Greeshman

Ya not everyone is likely to have a credit card so this might be a problem.

I wonder can you see any issues with the phone companies givin u any problems from starting this up, since there's nothing like this in this country at the moment. You would be takin a fairly big whack out of their revenue from text messages, I personally dont see them just letting you away with it!!!

But good luck to you, if you can make it work, your sure to make a small fortune with it!

ballooba

Could introduce prepaid cards from Alphyra machines (Centra, Spar etc.) if took off. provided Alphyra weren't looking for too much.

Linoge

ballooba wrote:

Could introduce prepaid cards from Alphyra machines (Centra, Spar etc.) if took off. provided Alphyra weren't looking for too much.

AFAIK, Alphyra make all their money by charging the sellers ie. Spar and Centra etc for the service. They dont make money on the actual credit sold at all. So, they shouldn't charge you a penny.

Random

This all seems very vague to me - any more information on this ?

rogue-entity

3c/message, that has to be the cheapest offer yet.

I would like to buy a bundle of "intl texts" for sending to the UK and the US. I would also like to buy a bundle for normal texts, it depends on how you are going to charge for this.

For payment you could use PayPal or WorldPay, they accept many different methods of payment and are far more secure then giving your bank details to a stranger (excluding trusted entities like your employer, or your phone company).

Genghis

rogue-entity wrote:

3c/message, that has to be the cheapest offer yet.

I would like to buy a bundle of "intl texts" for sending to the UK and the US. I would also like to buy a bundle for normal texts, it depends on how you are going to charge for this.

For payment you could use PayPal or WorldPay, they accept many different methods of payment and are far more secure then giving your bank details to a stranger (excluding trusted entities like your employer, or your phone company).

Paypal and WorldPay will restrict your market to internet-accessed nerdy types (who, admittedly are probably high volume texters). But if you want to take it to the masses, the Alphyra idea is a great one.

jlang

Presumably, if you launched this, Vodafone and O2 etc would have to drop their prices to compete - they'd lose some money, but not customers and you'd go bust. I say, do it!

edanto

Great idea, I wish you all the best with it.

I'd use it at that price even if it was a bit inconvenient paying for it on the web.

JTMan

This offer is vague with lots of questions unanswered.

I do not see how you can do this without operator backing.

sacrebleu

Mezcita wrote:

Interesting idea given that the phone companies make a mint out of the text happy Irish. Apparantly it costs the companies barely anything to send texts.

This business about being charged a higher rate for international texts is complete toss. That said one of the reasons I stay with 02 is for their 250 free webtexts.

Its a good idea though. Good luck if you decide to go with it.

You stay with O2 as you get 250 webtexts yet Vodofone give 300!!! You're with the wrong mobile co. if that's your only reason

JTMan

sacrebleu wrote:

You stay with O2 as you get 250 webtexts yet Vodofone give 300!!! You're with the wrong mobile co. if that's your only reason

O2 give you 250 INTERNATIONAL texts message for free. Vodafone give you no free international text messages.

i would definitely be interested, looking forward to seeing where this goes.